COMPANY FOUNDER EMIL EUCHNER

Emil Euchner, born in Reutlingen in 1903, started his training as a mechanic in the local steam machinery factory.

Soon this work no longer satisfied him and he studied electrical engineering in Esslingen.

He then gained experience as an engineer. Initially in Berlin. Here he worked in a company in which he was responsible for the development of switchgear.

In the twenties, the global economic crisis brought Emil Euchner back to Stuttgart. Here he took over a distributor. In the meantime, Emil Euchner had married and his son Wolfgang had been born.

Wolfgang Euchner, father of the current Managing Director, Stefan Euchner, remembers:

"At the beginning of the fifties, my father came to Nürtingen where he was employed as an external sales representative with a company. Just at the time, it happened that they were experiencing problems with their telephone system and my father noticed that these were being repaired with new switching relays by a Siemens technician. The relays switched with 48 volts instead of 220 volts and were therefore much smaller. The Nürtingen company incorporated the small units in its control cabinets. This prompted my father to develop the so-called multiple limit switch, which started its triumphant conquest of the international market under the name of cam switch."

The cam switch incorporates several individual switches in a single housing and is still a symbol for the innovative power of the business today.
When asked by the mechanical engineer from Nürtingen whether Siemens could build these devices themselves, the company declined. Other companies were also unenthusiastic. The reason: The quantities were too low. Emil Euchner took his chance, collaborated with his brother Paul Euchner to develop the first multiple limit switch in a period of just six weeks, and sold it to Nürtingen.

The demand grew, and soon there was no longer enough room in the small basement workshop in Stuttgart-Rohr. Emil Euchner thought about expanding, but he could not do this in Rohr. He went to Leinfelden, just outside Stuttgart. In 1953 there followed the founding of Euchner + Co.